Why Yogendra Yadav and Today’s Chanakya got it right about Delhi elections

SHARE:

In the last Lok Sabha election, Today’s Chanakya established an unassailable reputation in psephology (the statistical study of elections and trends in voting) by getting the predictions almost bang on target. While other opinion polls were way off the mark, Chanakya with a prediction of 340 for NDA against 336 actual did an astounding job. In 2013, predicting Delhi assembly results posed a real professional challenge as there was no previous data available for base comparison of AAP.

That was the main reason why others got AAP’s assessment horribly wrong. However, Chanakya by giving 31 to AAP against 28 actual in Delhi demonstrated its unmatched capability in psephology and has won the enviable reputation of having the highest credibility. It is now the most sought after opinion poll and its prediction is almost treated as the final result.

Yogendra Yadav, the top most intellectual stalwart of AAP has been acknowledged as the leading pesphologist of the land till he moved to AAP. His formidable prowess in organizing an opinion poll however remains unscathed.

Now, what forcefully catches ones attention is the almost incredible or should I say bizarre similarity between Yogender Yadav and Chanakya predictions. Let us have a look:

Yogender Yadav
– 57 best scenario
– 44 worst case scenario

Chanakya- 48+/- 6
– 54 best case
– 42 worst case

Just ponder, isn’t the similarity bewildering! Of course, they are predictions, one an internal survey the other an exit poll and we have to wait with bated breath for the final outcome on 10th Feb. However, there is an alternate way of assessing the result looking to the massive swing factor in AAP’s favour. Most prominent in this swing is the decimation of Congress vote bank and its visible shift to the AAP camp. Further, AAP has won the hearts of the minorities who have been duped enough by the so called secular parties. Let us also be clear that the voting pattern of the last Lok Sabha poll will have no bearing on the Delhi poll.

So, how do we go about it? Well, AAP is certainly going to retain its 28 seats. That inference is elementary as with such a raging AAP wave, nowhere it should lose even one of those seats. Now, in 2013, AAP was second in 20 seats. Again, looking to the swing factor, AAP should comfortably cover a margin of around 6000 votes where it stood second. There are thirteen such seats and that takes its tally to 41. The Congress can at best win two seats where its margin of victory in the last election was more than 23000(although, looking to the collapse of its base it can even end up with zero seats.) Out of the remaining six, we have already given two to AAP in the above 13 seats.( In two seats where AAP was second, Congress had won) That leaves us with 4. I am sure even a ‘Bhakt’ will acknowledge that the Congress vote can only shift to AAP. So, that takes the tally to 45.

Akali Dal had one seat (Rajouri Garden) . The price BJP will pay for accepting Dera Sacha Sauda support will be the loss of the lone Akali Dal seat. The fact that Rajouri Garden has witnessed a record 72.1% polling against 67.4% of the last poll, lends credence to the anger with which a particular community has voted and their natural choice would be AAP. This tales the total to 46.

In 2013 Shoab Iqbal won Matia Mahal on JDU ticket. He polled 22700(rounded off), Congress 19800 and AAP 18600. With JDU backing AAP and Congress base too shifting to AAP, this seat is merely a cake-walk. Now,the lone Independent to win in 2013 was Rambir Shokeen in Mundka who polled an impressive 52500 votes. Surprisingly,this time his wife is also contesting and that to on a Congress ticket in Mundka. In a fiercely intense bipolar contest an independent has no chance. A major chunk of this vote should shift to AAP. Congress polled 19000 votes last time and again we will see a shift of a good proportion of that to AAP. Thus, AAP’s winnability is very high. If you add up, we get the magic figure of 48, the mid-figure predicted by the most time-tested Chanakya.

Tail-piece: Why do psepohlogists predict a range. Obviously to accommodate the margin of error. However, there is one effect that works rather mercilessly on the positive side of the mid-range and that is called the wave-effect. By all accounts, there is the most strikingly visible AAP wave in Delhi. Surveys show that probably for the first time this wave is visible across age-groups, income-groups, castes, religions, males and females. This is simply unprecedented. Perhaps a tsunami! What should be its impact? Simple, it should lift the result to the uppermost level of the predicted range. My God! That’s 56! Looks incredible. Well, it’s just one more day of restlessness